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17 August 2010

Henry Raphael of London and Melbourne

The story of Henry Raphael is a very interesting one. It actually is two very different stories that when combined tell an incredible story. The first takes place inLondon, where in 1825, Henry is born to Phillip and Grace Raphael. Not a lot is known of his life in London, except that on 4 Jun 1851, in the Great Synagogue, he married Caroline Simmons.

Caroline was the daughter of Simon and Catherine Simmons of Edgeware Road, London. Apparently the two families got along well as her sister, Esther married Henry's brother Ralph. The census below, taken in 1851, shows Caroline living with her parents (http://www.findmypast.co.uk/).

The second part of the story of Henry Raphael takes place in the far away land of Australia. In his incredible book These Are The Names: Jewish Lives in Australia 1788-1850 (FHL book #994 K3l),John S. Levi, documents his life in Australia. The original source should be looked at as it is a wonderful history, however a few of the highlights are:

Arrived in 1842

Founding member of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in 1843.

Reputation as a heckler and trouble maker.

Left Melbourne to"find a wife", but returned before 1854, when he was accused of calling the officers of the synagogue "a set of thieves", because of this he was fined and his membership cancelled from 1 Jan 1854.

A son, Joseph George Raphael was born on 21 Jun 1861.

Became involved in the creation of the East Melbourne Synagogue in the 1870's.

This most colorful story ended when Henry Raphael died on 3 May 1894. His wife Caroline died on 3 March 1896, at the age of 62.

The records of this family can be found in The Jews of the British Isles.

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Why the Knowles Collection?

From an early age I have been trying to find as much information as I could about my gggrandfather, Morris DavidRosenbaum, a Polish Jew. In my search and through my work as a Reference Consultant in the British Research unit at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, I have compiled records of The Jewish people. This collection, linking Jewish families, is available free to all. Hopefully, people will come together to share the stories of their own families.

Size of the databases (1 Dec 2017)

Jews of British Isles 228,403Jews of Europe473721Jews of North America632198Jews of South America and Caribbean21,844Jews of Africa & Orient43686Jews of South Pacific21,684

Total 1,421,114

Growth and Change

In the 7 years since the Knowles Collection was first published, the numbers have climbed from just over 7,500 to over 1,383,000as of January of 2017. So many of our ancestors left their native lands for new homes. Because of that movement the collection will now be in 6 different databases. All of them will be under the Knowles Collection umbrella. They are Jewsof The British Isles; Jews of the North America; Jews of Europe; Jews of South America and the Caribbean; and Jews of Africa and the Orient and the newest one, Jews of the Southern Pacific.. This is a great indication of how universal our families are, and of how much still needs to be done.

IAJGS

IAJGS Local Societies.

The best way to start your family history research is to join your local Jewish Genealogical Society. This link will take you to the current list of societies , and will help you find the one closest to you.